Influence of Compression Garments on Recovery After Marathon Running

Abstract

Strenuous physical activity can result in exercise-induced muscle damage. The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of a lower limb compression garment in accelerating recovery from a marathon run. Twenty four subjects (female, n = 7; male, n = 17) completed a marathon run before being assigned to a treatment group or a sham treatment group. The treatment group wore lower limb compression tights for 72 hours after the marathon run, the sham treatment group received a single treatment of 15 minutes of sham ultrasound after the marathon run. Perceived muscle soreness, maximal voluntary isometric contraction (MVIC), and serum markers of creatine kinase (CK) and C-reactive protein (C-RP) were assessed before, immediately after, and 24, 48, and 72 hours after the marathon run. Perceived muscle soreness was significantly lower (p ≤ 0.05) in the compression group at 24 hours after marathon when compared with the sham group. There were no significant group effects for MVIC, CK, and C-RP (p > 0.05). The use of a lower limb compression garment improved subjective perceptions of recovery; however, there was neither a significant improvement in muscular strength nor a significant attenuation in markers of exercise-induced muscle damage and inflammation.

Compression Garments and Recovery from Exercise: A Meta-Analysis

“…These findings are consistent with existing literature which suggests that resistance exercise typically leads to greater levels of muscle damage than running [65][66][67], while non-load bearing exercise is subject to even less eccentric load [12]. Although running can result in comparable levels of EIMD to resistance exercise, for example, following a marathon [21], levels of EIMD reported throughout the literature are generally lower than those from resistance training [68].…”

“…Whilst previous analyses have reported a tendency for CG to exert greater relative effects on power recovery [9,64], these analyses were less extensive. Hill et al [21] reported a tendency towards larger effects for power recovery compared to strength, following the analysis of 17 power outcomes from six studies and 16 strength outcomes from five studies (a total of eight studies and 33 data-points). Similarly, Marques-Jimenez et al [64] recently reported a tendency towards comparatively greater effects on power recovery after analysing 30 power outcomes from five studies and 45 strength outcomes from eight studies (nine studies and 75 data-points in total).…”

“…More importantly, such physiological benefits to recovery are frequently observed alongside accelerated recovery of muscular power [20], strength [21,22] and endurance. As athletic performance is a composite of many physiological and psychological factors, it is possible that CG aid recovery on a number of levels.…”

“…As athletic performance is a composite of many physiological and psychological factors, it is possible that CG aid recovery on a number of levels. One of the most thoroughly investigated mechanisms for the benefits of CG [16,19,21] is the potential of such garments to minimise the symptoms of the exercise induced muscle damage (EIMD) which typically occurs as a result of unaccustomed or eccentric exercise [23]. Whilst eccentric exercise is beneficial for training power [24,25], strength and hypertrophy [26], such exercise is extremely damaging.…”

“…For example, the recovery of strength has been frequently improved by CG at time-points over 24 h, with reported benefits over controls consistently ranging from between 5% and 10% [9,19,21,34,38]. Conversely, CG were associated with impaired recovery of acceleration (2.5%) compared with controls following a three day basketball tournament [6], while recent reviews suggest compression confers only trivial effects on recovery from running [37,39].…”